First Russian Bird Flu Outbreak 2007

Russia has reported its first H5N1 avian influenza outbreak of the season.

Rosselkhoznadzor, the Russian government’s agricultural watchdog, announced today that poultry deaths were reported at three farmsteads in Krasnodar. A Spokesman said that samples from the birds tested positive for H5N1 avian influenza (bird flu).
Krasnodar is in southwest Russia near the Black Sea. The outbreaks occurred at three different settlements. Further tests on the samples will be conducted in Moscow.
Russia’s last confirmed outbreak was in July 2006, . The country had its first major poultry outbreak in 2005 but no human cases have been reported .

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Third Bird flu outbreak in Japan

Japan - Officials confirm a third outbreak of bird flu on a farm in Takahashi - although it is unclear if it is the H5N1 strain dangerous to humans.
About 40 chickens died and all poultry there are to be culled, and the movement of people and goods restricted.
Two H5N1 bird flu outbreaks were confirmed earlier this month in the southern prefecture of Miyazaki.
Tests have already determined that the new case of bird flu belongs to the H5 family of the virus, but further tests are to be made to find out if it is the strain potentially deadly to humans.
H5N1.
Officials are taking no chances and will cull all 12,000 birds at the affected Takahashi farm as early as Tuesday.
Other farms in a 10 km (six-mile) radius have been banned from transporting chickens and eggs, a ministry official said.

There have been a number of H5N1 outbreaks in Japan since early 2004, but no human deaths from the virus.
Across Asia health officials are on alert as a growing number of countries have reported cases in birds and humans in recent weeks.
Since the H5N1 virus emerged in South East Asia in 2003, it has claimed more than 150 lives around the world.

Bird flu outbreaks in Japan

The Japanese agriculture ministry on Thursday confirmed that the virus detected in the second case in a month of birds' mass death in Miyazaki Prefecture is the virulent H5 strain of the bird flu virus.
The National Institute of Animal Health in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture will further analyze the virus sample to determine if it was the lethal H5N1 type, Kyodo News reported.
About 1,300 birds died from Monday to Wednesday at a farm in the city of Hyuga. This is the second bird flu case in a month in Ibaraki prefecture and the sixth in Japan since 2004.
Earlier this month at a farm in the town of Kiyotake, 60 kilometers away from Hyuga 3,500 birds were killed by the H5N1 strain and all of the 12,000 birds incinerated.
Bird flu infections hit dozens of farms in central Japan's Ibaraki prefecture in 2005 and 2006, resulting in the destruction of at least 5.8 million poultry.

US Senate hears bird flu threat continues

(Reuters) - Bird flu poses as big a threat to the world as ever, and people need to worry about it more, U.S. senators and health leaders agreed at a meeting on Wednesday.

The Senate hearing was told that the H5N1 avian flu virus could cause a human pandemic at any time, killing perhaps millions, yet preparations are slow

Federal health officials said they were working to raise preparedness but progress has been slowed by budget limitations and the generally poor state of public health in the United States.

"I am concerned that there is not as much public awareness or concern today as there was a year ago ....You don't want to unduly alarm people. (But) I think people are unconcerned."
Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Arlen Specter told the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on health.

Firt european bird flu outbreak of winter

Jan 24, 2007 – Hungary announced today that it had a H5N1 avian influenza outbreak at a goose farm - the first appearance of the disease in Europe this winter.

A European Union statement said Hungarian authorities notified the EU of an H5N1 avian flu outbreak in Csongrad County (southeastern Hungary) , Reuters reported. The EU said vets tested some geese after several deaths were reported in a 3,000-bird flock; all the remaining geese were culled.

Hungarian veterinary officials told Bloomberg News they will send samples tomorrow to an EU lab in the UK to confirm the results.

Chief veterinarian Miklos Suth, in a tv appearance, said a surveillance zone had been set up around the farm. The farm is said to be in an isolated location, making spread of the disease less likely.

Hungary's first H5N1 outbreaks involved mute swans in Bács-Kiskun County in April 2006, according to the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE). The following June, the disease was found in several goose farms in the same county.

The last previous outbreak in Europe was in Germany last August, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Egypt bird flu deaths rise to 11

The Egyptian Ministry of Health and Population has announced a new human case of avian influenza A(H5N1) virus infection. The case was confirmed by the Egyptian Central Public Health Laboratory and by the US Naval Medical Research Unit No.3 (NAMRU-3).

The 27-year-old woman from Beni Sweif Governate developed symptoms on 9 January 2007 and died in hospital on 19 January.

Initial investigations indicate the presence of sick and dead poultry at her residence in the days prior to the onset of illness.

Of the 19 cases confirmed to date in Egypt, 11 have been fatal.

The world total deaths from avian influenza now stands at 163

Source : World Health organisation

New WHO Director speaks of Avian flu

Dr Margaret Chan, the new director general of the World Health Organisation, addressed the subject of avian flu in her address to the 120th Executive Board session of the WHO on 22nd January 2007.

"The message is straightforward: we must not let down our guard. The whole world has lived under the imminent threat of an influenza pandemic for more than three years. These years of experience have taught us just how tenacious this H5N1 virus is in birds.
Countries have made heroic efforts, yet the virus stays put or comes back, again and again. Almost no country with large outbreaks in commercial or backyard flocks has successfully eliminated this virus from its territory.
As long as the virus continues to circulate in birds, the threat of a pandemic will persist. The world is years away from control in the agricultural sector.
This may mean that we have some more years in which to improve preparedness, or it may not. Influenza viruses are notoriously sloppy, unstable, and capricious. It is impossible to predict their behaviour.
But we do know some things. The virus does not, at present, transmit easily from birds to humans. H5N1 avian influenza is still essentially a disease of birds.
For humans, we also know that this virus has lost none of its virulence. As of today, 267 cases have been confirmed, of which 161 were fatal, representing a case fatality rate of 60%. More deaths occurred in 2006 than in the previous years combined. For 2006, the case fatality rate was 70%.
We are clearly much better prepared than three years ago, but have every reason to continue these efforts. The revised International Health Regulations come into force in June. That will help. You have a resolution before you that calls for routine and timely sharing of biological materials related to novel influenza viruses. That will help as well."

Nutritional status and preparing for Bird Flu

BARRY W. RITZ, MS, researcher, was on the team of immunologists from DREXEL UNIVERSITY'S Department of Bioscience & Biotechnology which has just had a study published: Quote "An important consideration in preparing oneself for a possible influenza pandemic is nutritional status. Malnutrition is the leading cause of immunosuppression worldwide, and nearly any nutrient deficiency results in impaired immunity and an increased incidence of infection. Further, specific nutrients show great promise in enhancing immune function. In a study recently published in the Journal of Nutrition, we (the team of researchers at Drexel University) showed that a novel nutrient compound marketed under the brand name Immpower effectively enhanced the immune response to influenza infection, decreasing the severity of infection and expediting viral clearance."

bulgaria flu epidemic

Bulgaria is in the grip of a serious flu epidemic and the virus continues to spread. The outbreak is forcing hospitals to cancel hundreds of operations and there is significant overcrowding in majors hospitals across the country. The bug is due to peak this week according to experts from the National Center for Infectious Diseases. A flu epidemic was declared in the capital yesterday and several other cities did so earlier this week.

bird flu deaths

An Egyptian woman died in hospital on 19/01/2006 from the human form of bird flu. Warda Eid Ahmad, 27, from Beni Suef province, south of Cairo, was transferred to hospital in the capital on January 13 suffering from pneumonia.

An Indonesian woman has died of bird flu, raising the country's death toll to 62, while South Korea was set to slaughter 273,000 poultry after an outbreak of the deadly H5N1 strain at a chicken farm, officials said Saturday. The 19-year-old woman died on Friday after three days in hospital said health ministry official Nyoman Kandun. "She had contact with dead poultry six days before hospitalized," Kandun said. This is the fifth human bird flu fatality in Indonesia since Jan. 9. Before that, Indonesia had not recorded any cases for six weeks – a lull that led some Indonesian officials to say they were succeeding in beating the disease.

Developing technology for flu protection

18/01/2007 - The major drug companies Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) have been awarded contracts with the US government to develop adjuvant technology for pandemic influenza, to potentially increase the number of doses to be distributed among US citizens.

Recent figures imply that pandemic flu vaccine production, even at peak capacity, will only make vaccines available to 10 per cent of the US population. This prompted the US Department of Health and Human services (DHHS) to call for proposals to 'stretch the domestic influenza vaccine supply in the event of an influenza pandemic.'
The DHHS has invested into research on adjuvant technology – a substance added to a vaccine to improve the body's immune response – used in combination with a vaccine's active ingedient, the antigen. This has potential to lower the amount of antigen used per dose of H5N1 influenza vaccine.
A third contract has been awarded to Iomai to develop an immune-boosting skin patch, used in combination with an injectable influenza vaccine, which requires 10- to 100-times less vaccine.

Recent clinical data has shown that H5N1 pandemic vaccines require two doses to stimulate an immune response in humans and that up to 90 micrograms of antigen is used per dose, in comparison to seasonal influenza that uses 15 micrograms of antigens in a single dose.
Both Novartis and GSK have addressed this problem with their proprietary adjuvant technologies, as an example Novartis' MF59 has been included in several studies where it was found that it might reduce the amount of antigen needed for an immune response. In addition, MF59 can potentially provide cross-protection against changing flu strains.
Around two-thirds of GSK's vaccines in development are formulated with their proprietary adjuvant technology. In 2005, GSK boosted its presence in the vaccines field with the acquisition of its long-term US vaccines partner Corixa, which produced adjuvants contained in many of their vaccines. However, the pandemic flu adjuvant, details of which will not be disclosed until 3 March 2007, will be developed in a plant in Belgium, according to Graeme Hacking, GSK spokesperson.
”Novartis is committed to the development and supply of vaccines to help protect against both seasonal influenza as well as the possible emergence of pandemic influenza,” said Jörg Reinhardt, CEO of Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics.
”The use of our proprietary adjuvant MF59 with influenza vaccines has shown to be dose sparing and to provide additional immunogenicity against a broader range of potential pandemic influenza strains, while using lower amounts of viral antigen for the vaccine.”
”A limited global supply capacity of flu antigen makes it critical that we use innovative adjuvant system technology to produce a new generation of flu pandemic vaccines,” said David Stout, president of pharmaceuticals at GSK.
In 2006, DHHS made a bulk order of $40m (€31m) of bulk H5N1 antigen – representing 800,000 doses - to GSK, that will build on the existing US stockpile of about 5.9m doses of H5N1 vaccine. GSK was also awarded $274m to develop cell-culture technology to speed the development of new cell-culture-based seasonal and pandemic influenza vaccines, and to scale-up cell culture manufacturing capability at its Pennsylvania site.
In addition, DHHS announced it had also awarded contracts to two other drugmakers – Sanofi-Pasteur and Novartis – to supply flu vaccines. The three drug firms will make enough doses to cover 2.7m people for $200m worth of vaccines against the H5N1 avian flu virus, DHHS said.
“Having a stockpile of influenza vaccine that may offer protection against the H5N1 virus is an important part of our pandemic influenza preparedness plan," said HHS secretary Michael Leavitt.

Latest Bird Flu news causes concern

BEIJING (Reuters) - Bird flu has infected a farmer in China's first human case in months, killed an Indonesian teenager and spread deeper in Vietnam in a flare-up of infections mirroring past winters.
A second Indonesian bird flu victim, a 37-year-old woman from Banten Province on Java island, was in hospital on Wednesday, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.
Most human victims of bird flu have contracted the virus from infected birds, usually chickens, ducks or geese and there is usually a surge in cases during cooler months when the virus seems to thrive.

The 37-year-old Chinese man from the eastern province of Anhui kept backyard birds, but as in other human bird flu cases in China there was no reported poultry outbreak in the area, raising questions as to how he contracted the virus.

The man developed symptoms of fever and pneumonia early last month and was discharged from hospital on Saturday, the state-run Health News said.
"In China, the challenge is now to identify where this virus is hiding and how it is circulating," Henk Bekedam, the WHO's China representative, told Reuters.
China has reported 22 human cases, including 14 deaths, since 2003 and, with the world's largest poultry population and millions of backyard birds roaming free, it is seen as a center in the fight against the virus.

Bekedam said that as vaccination rates for birds improve in China, detecting avian influenza becomes harder and harder, offering a possible explanation for why there was no reported outbreak where the farmer lived.
BOY DIES
Indonesia has the highest human death toll from bird flu of any nation, and on Wednesday that number grew to 58 when a boy, from Tangerang near Jakarta, died, said the head of the Indonesian health ministry's bird flu center Runizar Ruesin.
The boy was admitted to hospital in the capital last week and deaths among poultry in his neighborhood had recently been reported, the WHO said in a statement posted on its Web site (http://www.who.int).

Muhammad Nadirin, another official at the country's bird flu center, said hospital staff had to take extra care washing the boy's corpse because of concerns the virus might infect them.
"He was washed using special protection methods to prevent contagion," but added he didn't know if it could be transmitted from human-to-human this way.
The H5N1 virus mostly affects birds, but it has infected 263 people in 10 countries since 2003, killing 157 of them.
Scientists fear the virus could mutate and spread rapidly between people, triggering a pandemic that could sweep the globe in weeks and possibly kill millions.

An adviser to the White House said on Monday the number of people that could die in a flu pandemic that matches the 1918-19 outbreak will be "very scary" and far higher than the 62 million deaths forecast by a recent study by Harvard University.
The 1918-19 "Spanish influenza" pandemic killed anywhere from 20 million to 100 million people.
In Vietnam, bird flu has been confirmed in a fourth Vietnamese province after tests on 70 ducks showed they had died from the H5N1 virus, a government report said on Wednesday.
The results of tests on ducks found dead at the weekend prompted health workers to slaughter around 1,800 more ducks in two communes of Kien Giang province in the southern Mekong Delta, the Animal Health Department report said.

The virus that first struck the delta region in late 2003 re-emerged last month. Vietnam has had no human H5N1 cases since November 2005.